Close on heels of phasing out minimum import price, India’s Steel Ministry will soon officially notify that no steel products below standards set by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) would be allowed to be imported, a government official said on Thursday, August 31.
He said that the official notification on minimum standards for imports of steel is expected to be put in place within the next fortnight.
He said that while the minimum import price, which has been phased out over the past few months has set pricing barriers to imports of steel, the new import protection move would aim to set standard benchmarks for imports.
For all steel products wherein, the BIS has laid down standard specifications, all imported steel products matching such standard specifications would be permitted to be imports and products below the specifications would not be allowed to be imported.
The official said that the move to use standard specification as import protection is a reaction of the government to the rising practice of imports of semi-finished goods by mis-declaring product categories and specifications.
Citing an example, he said that while antidumping duty has been levied for stainless steel sheets up to 1,250 mm, importers has been importing sheets of larger width and customizing through cutting of the sheets at the port of landing.